From the jaws of a shark comes a ripping yarn
A fisherman survived a shark attack in New Caledonia by poking the creature in the eye as it shook him "like a rag", he told a newspaper.

Jesse Jizdny, a 30-year-old policeman, said the tiger shark went for him three times last week while he was fishing with friends off the north-western coast of the French South Pacific territory.

"I saw a big tiger [shark] coming with its jaws open. I saw all its teeth. He went for my torso and I thought, 'That's it, I'm done for,' " he told the Nouvelles Caledoniennes newspaper from his hospital bed.

He hit the shark on its nose but it came back at him and caught his ankle.

Then it charged a third time and grabbed a leg.

"It was shaking me like a rag. I bent round on him and put my hands on its jaws. Suddenly I felt something soft. So I put my whole thumb in. It was its eye."

The shark let go and swam away.

Mr Jizdny was airlifted to hospital in the capital Noumea where he underwent an operation on his injured leg.

Diver escapes shark by poking it in eye
From correspondents in Noumea
January 29, 2007 07:28pm

A FISHERMAN says he survived a shark attack in New Caledonia by poking the creature in the eye as it shook him "like a rag".

Jesse Jizdny, a 30-year-old policeman, said the tiger shark went for him three times while he was fishing with friends off the northwestern coast of the French South Pacific territory last week.
"I saw a big tiger (shark) coming with its jaws open. I saw all its teeth. He went for my torso and I thought, `That's it, I'm done for'," Jizdny told the Nouvelles Caledoniennes newspaper from his hospital bed.

He hit the shark on its nose but it came back at him and caught his ankle. Then it charged a third time and grabbed a leg.

"It was shaking me like a rag. I bent round on him and put my hands on its jaws. Suddenly I felt something soft. So I put my whole thumb in, it was its eye."

The shark let go and swam away, while Jizdny was airlifted to hospital in the capital Noumea where he underwent an operation on his injured leg.